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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29043408">RL Cultivation 101</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gina3/pseuds/Gina3'>Gina3</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Imperial Cloud Recesses [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Original Work, 陈情令 | The Untamed (TV), 魔道祖师 - 墨香铜臭 | Módào Zǔshī - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Meta, Other, Taoism, cultivation</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 05:49:19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,320</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29043408</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gina3/pseuds/Gina3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A basic and simplified summary of how cultivation is said to work irl, as well as elaborations on the terms qi, dantian, meridians, nei gong etc.<br/>As a result this should also give you some insight into how the human body etc is seen in Taoism.</p><p>Originally written as a 'fun fact' and background info for my fic Impenetrable Walls.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Imperial Cloud Recesses [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2047199</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>77</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>RL Cultivation 101</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This little meta piece exists because one of the rl fun facts (historical and otherwise) which I've started to add at the end of the chapters of <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24111895">Impenetrable Walls</a>, became so long that it would have required three end notes to post. Oops.</p><p> Disclaimer 1: while all of the below is to the best of my knowledge correct, the information here is also very basic and overly simplified. In order to keep this comprehensible and at a manageable length I had to pick and choose what to focus on, additionally I skipped and glossed over a lot of what I deemed not as relevant to the specific context of IW, as this is what this piece was originally written for, like the concept of wu xing, the elements etc. <strike>compare it in it's arguable value to The Tao of Pooh if you want, as such</strike> I still hope it gives you a better understanding both of cultivation irl and how I approach it in my fics.</p><p> Disclaimer 2: I am not an expert when it comes to Nei Gong nor am I a serious practitioner, my interest is mostly abstract and philosophical in nature. All I did was take a couple of Nei Gong electives in college and later read a few books—uh, none of which happened recently. Today I mostly practice the physical side (Qi Gong and Tai Chi) because tbh I lack the spirituality for more. It's great for my weak shoulder though and ideal for those who feel that they can't sit still for meditation.</p><p>  <span class="small">Edit January 28th:<br/>One of my more fandom-savvy friends has informed me that mdzs fandom has been extra wanky recently, and that I might not want to post this as an individual meta piece right now, because it might trigger some people for reasons.<br/>I don't know what actually happened in detail, nor do I care, but please be aware that all the notes below were compiled specifically for the world-building of Impenetrable Walls and are not meant to address anything or anyone else in fandom, nor is this me taking any sides. Seriously, I've lived through the Ray Wars, I'm too old to care about any of that shit.<br/>Stuff that is specifically my interpretation or head-canon is clearly indicated as such, anything else you can find in any well-sorted library (depending on which country you live in I guess). Any rudeness and trolling will be deleted.</span></p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>Part 0: the story thus far...</b>
</p><p>if you know the term qi from just cultivation novels or animes/mangas, then you might think of qi as a simple substitute for handwavy magic—which in those cases isn't necessarily wrong, even though I am admittedly not fond of hearing it called that—but irl things are not as simple.</p><p>For centuries, the religious and philosophical landscape in China was dominated by Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism existing side by side, and all three left their impact on tcm (traditional Chinese medicine) as well as cultivation—even though the latter is mostly Taoist.</p><p>Until now IW has generally used the term qi in the way that it is used in tcm, aka there is the dark, cold, feminine, earth aspect of qi called yin, and the bright, warm, male, heavenly aspect called yang, both of which should be balanced for optimum health. Imbalances can be treated by nutrition, making changes to the environment, acupuncture, etc and preventative measures are often taken. So you for example don't eat hot meat like dog in summer, the warmest season, and instead eat it in winter when you need the extra warmth.</p><p>However, besides the more or less universally known and practiced teachings of tcm in China there is also cultivation, in which qi plays an equally important part and which is what wwx in IW is beginning to focus on now in his dual cultivation research. This is also where things get more complicated, so strap in should any of that interest you.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>Part 1: Wtf do you mean cultivation is real?</b>
</p><p>Like I already mentioned before in IW, cultivation as we know it from novels, tv shows and movies etc is based on real practices and is an integral part of Taoist philosophy.<br/>
In Chinese the broad term for that is Nei Gong, of which there are different schools with different understandings and focuses. Tai Chi and Qi Gong for example, too, are tools of Nei Gong.</p><p>Now cultivation might or might not be the most correct term to translate this to, but for readers familiar with mdzs &amp; co it might be the most relatable one.</p><p>Literally Nei Gong means internal work, exercise or skill and is commonly defined somewhat along the lines of, the process of conditioning the physical body, cultivating the internal spirit and finally elevating the consciousness to reach enlightenment. The goal of all Nei Gong practices is to stay healthy, prolong your life and improve your mental focus, so yeah, I'm gonna go with the term cultivation, especially given the nature of IW.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>Part 2: It's all about energy</b>
</p><p>In Taoist thought the human body—as well as everything else—is made of energy originating from the Tao and consists of three parts, the physical body, the energetic body and the consciousness.</p><p>Through these three bodies flows energy, which vibrates at an increasing frequency, like so ~. The plus/positive one is the yang and the minus/negative one is the yin. Depending on said frequency, this energy is called jing, qi or shen, but in essence it is the same, only converted into 'better quality' and vibrating stronger and faster.</p><p>There are also three primary energy centers called dantian, one for each body and level of vibration, that transport and convert the energy to a higher frequency and which connect the three bodies. Thus they serve as access points from the physical body to the energy body as well as from the energy body to the consciousness.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>2.1 the physical body, essence and the lower dantian</b>
</p><p>The physical body is—well, our physical body. Connected to it is jing—the essence. It is the slowest moving and most primitive of the three energies and associated with creation, conception, birth and nourishment. Thus it is often (not just in the fic) mistaken as 'the sex one' and reduced to mean sperm or vaginal fluids, which is only partially correct.</p><p>The essence gathers around the kidneys and part of it does indeed seep into the respective sexual organs where it gets converted to sexual fluids, but its most important purpose is to be converted to the next higher level of vibration, the well known energy called qi.</p><p>This is done in the lower dantian, which sits below the navel and near the kidneys, from which it is then channeled into the meridian system to nurture the energy body.</p><p>Too much sex as a consequence leads to too much essence being spilled and can lead to not enough being available for conversion into qi <strike>(aren't we glad that lwj already has a golden core and thus doesn't have that problem by the time he becomes sexually active)</strike></p><p>It is a common misconception—and canon in most cultivation novels etc—that excess qi is stored in the lower dantian. (Said nonexistent storage is later, once the cultivators of said novels have accumulated enough qi, used to form a golden core aka an infinite battery.)</p><p>In rl practice/theory/philosophy this is not true. Some excess energy is stored in the meridians, yes, but it is also expelled by breathing or if needed released into the earth (usually by meditation and through the heel, not sex)</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>2.2 the energy body, qi and the middle dantian</b>
</p><p>The energy body connects the physical body to the human consciousness and consists of countless energy channels called meridians, which are used to guide and transfer qi to the organs etc where it ensures optimum function. Through said energy system, the qi also moves to the middle dantian, which is located near the heart in the middle of the chest, where it is converted to shen.</p><p>The higher the quality of your qi, the better it functions obviously. The energy body is also where we find our emotions aka the transient outer layer of our consciousness, and yes, qi deviations—mostly caused by emotional imbalance etc—too exist, with lists of symptoms and treatments.</p><p>Also part of the energy body is the wei—guardian—qi. This is a field of qi engulfing your body, like a protective shield. It protects you from negativity as well as sickness and cold and is made of essence as well as qi.</p><p>Once again the quality of the essence etc determines the strength of the guardian qi. Some of it is also made of qi and shen, and this in turn protects you from negative outside emotions. Finally there is the aura, where life events leave their impact on you in the form of yin and yang energies. All these, too, can be treated and healed. </p><p>(I mention the guardian qi specifically because imo wwx had to open this protective shield up and let things through that it probably wouldn't have otherwise, especially in demonic cultivation—hence where some of lwj's worry for his wellbeing stems from—but also in dual cultivation. While it might be more pleasant and beneficial during the latter, the past trauma—conscious or unconscious—is bound to not make all this easier)</p><p>
  <span class="small">Excursion: a meridian is a meridian but also not</span>
</p><p>
  <span class="small">In short meridians are not unlike an irrigation system, they make sure the qi is evenly distributed, they circulate it and they store (some of) the excess.</span>
</p><p>
  <span class="small">While many meridians are arguably still undiscovered, the most well known and generally worked with are the 12 acquired meridians, which are connected to the organs (you might know these from acupuncture) and the 8 congenital meridians, which are used to store excess qi. Then there's of course also the 3 energy centers aka the dantians which I already covered.</span>
</p><p>
  <span class="small">The meridians can also be divided into yin and yang. All the yin meridians are linked and circulate the flow of yin, as are all the yang, and the energy is—ideally—evenly distributed among them. As always balance needs to be achieved in order to stay healthy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span class="small">If the qi storage in the meridians as well as the thoracic and abdominal cavity—another storage place—is full, then the newly added energy from breathing, food and conversion etc begins to rise and the body becomes heated, elevating blood pressure as well as physical and mental tension. <strike>possible head-canon: what the Lan's suffer from</strike><br/>
</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>2.3 the Consciousness, shen and the upper dantian</b>
</p><p>This step is where things becomes (even more) theoretical for most—or as my inner cynic would say all—people, because we move from training our physical body with Tai Chi etc and guiding our qi through our energetic body to help us improve and stay healthy, to eying matters beyond simple human comprehension and constraints aka the end goal aka enlightenment.</p><p>The shen converted in the middle dantian is directed to the upper dantian. From here these highest and most heaven-like vibrations are spread throughout the consciousness. By mastering this level, the shen opens up access to ancient knowledge and long forgotten wisdom.</p><p>This is often symbolized by a white light, like the one you are supposed to sometimes envision while meditating or the one you are said to see just before death. If you are more Christian/Catholic inclined, then you can also compare it to the halo of a saint.</p><p>Once all three bodies—physical, energetic and consciousness—are mastered, enlightenment can be achieved, which is done by balancing the mind between all three aka the middle of the Venn diagram, which opens you up to the Tao, from which in turn true consciousness is born. The end goal—crudely put—is to reach vibration at such a frequency that it becomes pure emptiness and stillness again and one with the Tao.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>Part 3: Tai Chi, Qi Gong and never moving past the cultivation of the physical body</b>
</p><p>The physical body, the energy body and the consciousness are cultivated one after the other. This can take years at a minimum and more likely decades.</p><p>Many—by choice—never move past step one, the conditioning of the physical body. Some tools which are used to cultivate the physical body are like I already mentioned Tai Chi and Qi Gong.</p><p>There was a lot of effort made by the CCP &amp; Co to make both practices accessible to not only a wider spectrum of the population, but indeed to everyone, which was quite successful and imo a wonderful idea. Both are easy to begin learning, are suitable for any age and the movements are slow and gentle, with a low risk of injury, and still they are great forms of exercise to stay fit, healthy and aid with mental clarity.</p><p>This simplification however also meant that the more spiritual second and third steps, the cultivation of the internal energy body/system and later on the elevation of the consciousness, had to take a backseat and are nowadays only known by the average Chinese person (which imo is a large and diverse enough group to make generalizations mostly impossible) to a degree in which it enables them to easily write and understand cultivation novels or to consume other media inspired by this, of which there are many, reaching from Jackie Chan to otherworldly immortals flying through mystical realms—there are even some who have both.</p><p>Now while the first step can (unideally) be done just by copying the exercises you are shown, the other two require detailed study of the philosophy and mechanics of it all.</p><p>Not only do you need to prepare for a decade(s) long time investment, you also need to be spiritually ready. You have to be able to consciously understand how your body and mind (need to) work in order to strengthen and convert jing into qi. To do that you have to learn to identify the energies and the respective vibrations that make up your physical and energetic bodies and then make them work together as one. And I haven't even mentioned the word dantian in this to do list yet.</p><p>Only once you've mastered that can you begin to awaken the energy system and learn to move the (yang) qi and reap many of the healing advantages.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>Part 4: so what does that mean for wwx in IW? <i>aka here be my personal head-canon!</i></b>
</p><p>In this fic, dual cultivation turns all of that somewhat on its head, at least in that wwx needs to focus on learning to siphon off the yin jing to transfer to lwj and later take in lwj's yang jing before he can start converting it into balanced qi in his dantian. This means that he now has to actually figure out how to unlearn some of the things that became ingrained to him as a teenager.</p><p>Wwx of course already far surpassed those initial stages once before, as did all the other cultivators who managed to form a golden core, so he understands the general principles of 'normal cultivation', but his teachers never attempted any explanation of how and why things worked, only what had to be done.</p><p>So now (~chapter 25) thanks to the new field of dual cultivation and lwj's hesitance to just plow ahead and experiment, wwx has to take a few steps back and actually learn to identify and analyze these energies, for only if he understands them can he work on reversing what he did before and separate and guide the yin jing and take in the yang jing to help strengthen them both.</p><p>In a way, I see this as more difficult than demonic cultivation, because the hardest part of demonic cultivation is overcoming the norms you've been taught all your life, and then it's 'only' a matter of learning to channel and guide the resentful energies where you want them. wwx used those external energies to affect other external matters, while in dual cultivation the aim is to use different aspects of your and someone else's internal energies in each other's bodies, which is imo no doubt more complex.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>
  <span class="small">Jing, shen, dantian and any other pinyin terms will btw not be making any appearance in this series nor any other of my fics. I will use the not always 100% correct qi and core for the former and English translations for the latter instead. Using pinyin terms that aren't commonly used and understood in English is a pet peeve of mine. I'd never judge anyone who does use them for better immersion or just because they enjoy using them, but it already gives me hives every time I have to write -jun, so don't expect anything more from me, especially if its easily avoidable things like (golden) core or (older) brother. See also why I write Tai Chi and Taoism instead of Taiji and Daoism.</span>
</p></blockquote></div></div>
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